


Being Contented (Doesn't Mean You're Happy)

by Nebula_Angel



Series: After The Happily Ever After [2]
Category: Cinderella (1950), Cinderella - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, canon struggle to adapt to being a member of a royal family, implied suicide, mentions of post partum, terminally ill young child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebula_Angel/pseuds/Nebula_Angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cinderella eventually gets the hang of the technical aspects of the life of a Princess. It doesn't mean that her life got easier, though."</p><p>Cinderella's life told in small snippets from her first born to her death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Contented (Doesn't Mean You're Happy)

The labor is long, and tedious, and all she has to show for it in the end is a daughter. Cordelia - she has finally managed to shake that awful nickname after Lady Tremaine dies - is disappointed and happy and frustrated all at once. The child is, despite the complicated birth, happy and healthy, and it frustrates Cordelia even more that she must be an endless disappointment to her people. A daughter, and a healthy girl at that, and eventually, she becomes so enraged at the sight of her daughter that she starts spending time with Drizella and Anastasia just to avoid her own child. 

Surprisingly, it's Drizella who helps her deal with the depression that has consumed her since her eldest child was born. They are sitting at their daily tea in the garden when Drizella brings the girl up, and tells her she's young and healthy, and in love, and so there will be more children. That distancing herself from any of her children will only result in them acting as Drizella and Anastasia had when they were children. Cordelia is surprised, and then disgusted at herself, before she quietly admits that she's still worried that she will be a terrible mother. Drizella smiles and tells her she was always so talented, and she doesn't think that Cordelia will be anything other than amazing at motherhood. 

It helps, that advice, through the first two years of her eldest girl's life, and even more when her next pregnancy ends in twins - both girls. Cordelia tells herself again and again that this will help their country strengthen their diplomatic alliances, three young women who will clearly grow up beautiful and loved. But no matter how much she tells herself that, she still sees the looks that come now, hears the poorly disguised whispers - 17 is too old to bear a healthy son, should have married another princess - and cries herself to sleep at night. Still, she smiles when the eldest - Margaret, after Charmant's mother - helps her with the twins, Alice and Lily - after her own mother and Lady Tremaine - and tells her she's happy to have sisters because boys are gross, and they're no good anyway. Cordelia happily relays the story to Anastasia when they get Margaret together to play with Anastasia's husband. She tells Anastasia she worries that Margaret will resent being born a girl when her eldest - sweet and genuine in everything she does - finds out that boys are coveted. Anastasia doesn't disagree with her, and Cordelia's heart clenches painfully. 

Her next child is born early, and is born sickly. The little girl - Henriette, after the King - barely cries through too pale lips and sleeps more than her first three children combined. Charmant and she both hover, and Margaret - seven now and old enough to be able to tell when something is wrong - busies the two year old twins with exploring the library and asking their grandfather to tell them stories about his own wife. For the first time, Charmant tells her that he is not worried about the lack of a son, but he is worried for Henriette's life. They wait three weeks before the physician tells them she'll live; but for how long, he can't - or won't - say, and he tells them she'll always be smaller and frailer than the other children, that she will never bear children. The first time she sleeps in her own bed after Henriette is born, Cordelia cries for three hours before Charmant comes in and holds her. It's the first time they've shared a bed for anything other than sex, and Cordelia finds herself thinking wistfully of their honeymoon, when they could laugh and be carefree. 

But Charmant is a busy man, a Prince who takes his duty seriously, and is often away, leaving Cordelia to everything at home that the King doesn't take care of. It gets worse when the King dies - at 89 - and Charmant has his coronation. They spend less time together, even though Charmant sends his Council to attend to business away from the Capitol. She is nearly 30 when she conceives her son, and the birth is not difficult, but not easy. Thankfully, Jean was carried to term, and he is healthy and happy and so is the Kingdom, but Cordelia is not. 

Cordelia takes to schooling the children on her own. It's unheard of but Drizella and Anastasia have their own children and it's like their own makeshift school, the three of them teaching their children the alphabet and mathematics and writing and Margaret is brilliant and helps corral the younger children - she's nearly 13 now, and Cordelia dreads the day when Charmant tells her she will be sent away to marry a foreign prince. But Margaret has been raised knowing it will happen, and she quells her mother's fears one day, telling her she is unafraid, that she has had a wonderful role model to look up to. She knows how to behave herself like a Princess. 

Jean is four when Charmant dies in a carriage accident. Several of Charmant's advisors press for her to name them his Regent, but she refuses and takes the position herself. Margaret smirks, visiting with her husband and sons - three of them - and tells the advisors to leave her grieving mother be. The twins flock to her and play with their nephews. Henriette is still just as sickly, and her father's death has worsened her condition. Cordelia calls the physician, but he says ten years is more than he could have hoped to give the girl. Cordelia tells Henriette's head of household to alert her if anything happens to her daughter.

It's no more than three weeks later when Henriette finally succumbs to her illness. Margaret is still here, as are her family, and she's glad. Margaret is ridiculously efficient, handling the arrangements and her sisters all at once. Jean whines about having to mourn for a sister he didn't particularly care for, and Cordelia can't handle his casual cruelty. Margaret, sensing that, sends the twins and her boys to Anastasia and Drizella for a day and lectures her brother's ear off. Margaret is kind, but she is also pragmatic, and she tells him he's King now, and must learn to hide indifference and mourn whenever the situation calls for it. 

Cordelia tells her to go easy on her brother, after, says he's so young he could never understand. Her grandson is four too, she is told, and understands that Grandfather Charmant and Tante Henriette won't be coming back, that they've gone on to the afterlife. That he understood all of this without being told. Cordelia doesn't bring up coddling the boy again. 

She muddles through life until Jean is 15 and she finds an advisor she trusts, and tells him she has to go away. She makes sure that her son, and her twins are with Drizella, so that they won't find her body.

**Author's Note:**

> After the Snow White one shot, I decided I would do a series of the official Disney Princesses, in chronological order.
> 
> I genuinely enjoyed the sequel to Cinderella, and how they portrayed her after her wedding having to adapt to the life of a princess.


End file.
